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Ravi Coltrane Signs With Blue Note

By Nate Chinen August 4, 2010 6:34 pmAugust 4, 2010 6:34 pm

Ravi Coltrane, the highly regarded tenor and soprano saxophonist, is the newest addition to the roster of Blue Note Records, with an album due out next spring. His signing unites the most storied label in jazz, one of the last majors standing, with a saxophonist-bandleader from an imposing lineage: Mr. Coltrane’s father was John Coltrane, who similarly played tenor and soprano, reshaping the language of jazz improvisation from the mid-1950s up to his death in 1967.

Mr. Coltrane, who turns 45 on Friday, comes to Blue Note with an established track record, having made albums for RCA Victor and Savoy Jazz. “Ravi’s a guy we’ve been watching for a long time,” said Bruce Lundvall, the chairman emeritus of Blue Note.

The decision to finally sign Mr. Coltrane was made last year, he said, in the midst of festivities around the label’s 70th anniversary. (Mr. Coltrane toured widely with a related all-star group, the Blue Note 7, and appeared on an accompanying album.) “He’s standing on his own two feet now, he’s got his own language, his own voice,” Mr. Lundvall said. “He’s found a direction that’s very different from his dad. It’s not about that; it’s really totally about him.”

John Coltrane was never signed to Blue Note — during the height of his career, he was an Atlantic artist, and then the anchor of Impulse! — but he did make one important album for the label, the 1957 hard-bop classic “Blue Train.” And in 2005, Blue Note released “Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall,” a newly discovered recording of a 1957 concert, to near-universal acclaim and commercial success.

Mr. Coltrane has long been an active steward of his father’s legacy, and he oversaw the late-career renaissance of his mother, the keyboardist Alice Coltrane, who died in 2007. He is scheduled to tour with his quartet this fall, playing Sept. 21 to 26 at the Village Vanguard, where he appeared around the same time last year.